Using an old Android phone in the car...

[cj2013]

Surely others must have thought of/done this before?

I was going through the drawers this morning and noticed I now have an old (but perfectly fine) Motorola Android phone, and also a Nokia (with Windows Phone). I have Torque on the former, and have used it with a cheap bluetooth dongle for simple diagnostics a few years back.

Has anyone converted one of these to an extended dashboard before?

I know I could just do a custom layout with Torque, but it would probably take 5-10 mins each time you turned on the car to turn it on and set it all up; Fine for a track day, not so much for everyday fit/forget driving.

Any solutions out there? seems a shame to just have phones sat around with no use, and they're practically worthless otherwise. I have seen new stereos work on "Android Auto", but I don't know if that allows such a use?

[cj2013]

DennisCooper said:

Hi,

No reason why you couldn't use it for certain functions, so in that regard, use it for what you'd like. There's apps on the Play store which give you the functions of a dashcam for free, so mount in a holder, buy a cheapy 16GB card and you've got that functionality for instance. Use the TuneIN app for music streaming via bluetooth if you oem head unit has it and so forth.

Later more poweful android phones can run the standalone 'app' version of Android Auto as well, older less powerful ones can't run it.

Cheers, Dennis!

Thanks.

What I was more concerned with was getting it to turn on/off with ignition (and much quicker than android loads). Seen a few solutions out there, but nothing seems practical